Monday, November 24, 2014

The only option Hamas faces, therefore, is to attack Israel again as a way of ridding itself of the severe crisis in the Gaza Strip and the growing frustration among Palestinians living there.
Hamas's biggest fear is that this frustration will be translated into disillusionment with its regime. That is why Hamas is now seeking to direct the anger on the Palestinian street toward Israel.
Recent statements by several Hamas representatives show that the Islamist movement does not rule out the possibility of waging another war against Israel, using as an excuse the failed promises to reconstruct the Gaza Strip.
Hamas is now talking about an imminent "explosion" against Israel if the promises to rebuild Gaza are not fulfilled. Some Hamas representatives even have the audacity to hold Israel fully responsible for hindering the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.Hamas's threats against Israel should be taken seriously, especially in light of reports that the movement is continuing to prepare for another war. Hamas not only continues to dig tunnels under the border with Israel; it has also been test-firing rockets into the Mediterranean Sea.
Hamas does not have much left to lose in another military confrontation with Israel.
The killing of a few hundred more Palestinians in the Gaza Strip will allow Hamas to shift attention from its failure to rebuild the Gaza Strip to blaming Israel for "waging another war" on the Palestinians. Hamas is also hoping that another war will further increase anti-Israel sentiment around the world and earn the Palestinians even more sympathy.Abbas also stands to benefit from another war in the Gaza Strip. Renewed fighting would absolve him of his responsibility toward the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. Additionally, of course, there is always the possibility that Israel would "do the job for him" and get rid of Hamas. And like Hamas, Abbas too would seek to take advantage of the fighting to wage another campaign of incitement against Israel in the international arena.

In the west, the leaders of terrorist organizations speak moderately and responsibly in their speeches. But in the middle-east, when speaking to their people and their allies, they do not hesitate to deny the existence of the State of Israel and to call for Jihad, battles, and suicide attacks.
Members of terrorist organizations have not hesitated to bless the perpetrators of recent attacks such as stabbings and car rammings. They also praised the kidnapping and murder of three young Israelis in the summer of 2014.Below is a collection of quotes by Palestinian leaders that will make you think twice about their true intentions.

The Egyptian official explanation is that security requires the closing. Recently the Egyptian ‎terrorist group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis pledged loyalty to the Islamic State group. In October, 33 ‎Egyptian security personnel were killed by terrorists; last week, five more. Why these events ‎require that people in need of medical treatment may not use Rafah, and how that closure ‎enhances Egyptian security, may be debated.‎
My point is a different one: Were it Israel keeping the key passage closed and simply saying ‎security requires it, this would be a very big deal. The condemnations would be constant. ‎Instead, near silence. Double standard? The usual lack of interest in how Arabs treat other ‎Arabs? The desire not to criticize President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's government in Cairo? So it seems. A ‎Palestinian would be justified in concluding that the world hasn't the slightest interest in the ‎fate of Palestinians, other than as a battering ram to use against Israel. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The PFLP was always violent and extreme, but the notion that its members would scream the Islamic war cry of “Allahu Akbar” or “God is Great” as they killed rabbis at prayer is extraordinary and it shows how completely Islamist the Palestinian nationalist narrative has become. There was a time when the leadership of the Palestinian cause included many nominal Christians and leftists. That reality is long gone.
Israel’s reaction to the horror has been tempered and controlled, which it has to be. Hamas and their allies are losing influence, having waged a disastrous campaign in Gaza recently. Yet they’re not fools and know that if they can force Israel to attack them, the world will once again embrace the David and Goliath cliché and blame the Jews.
There are, of course, moderate Palestinian voices. A major Ramallah-based journalist wrote on Wednesday that slaughter in a synagogue was no different from slaughter in a mosque and that this was not heroism but criminality. Tragically, his voice is thin and the fanatical scream is thick with blood and gore.
I don’t believe there is very much hope for a so-called two-state solution, but then again there probably never was. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism has muddied the conversation, Israeli settlements have only worsened the relationship, the decay of the Arab status quo elsewhere in the region has unleashed dark and unpredictable forces.
This crime will not be the last. I wish I could say otherwise, but I can’t.

In response to the gruesome axe murders and shootings, Palestinians in Gaza and the 'West Bank' erupted in spontaneous celebrations by handing out cookies and candy, dancing in the streets, honking horns, flaunting axes, setting off firecrackers, cheering, holding up posters “honoring” the two “martyrs”, and displaying V-for-victory signs just as they did in the celebrations that followed the September 11th terror attacks and the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15th, 2013.
The Palestinian Authority referred to the slaughter as a “heroic operation at a religious Zionist institute”. Teachers employed by UNRWA (United Nations Relief & Works Agency) also joined in the “celebration”. They went on social media to praise what they called a “heroic operation,” hoping that Allah would accept the jihadists as “martyrs” in heaven.
This should come as no surprise. During Operation Protective Edge last summer, UNRWA allowed Hamas to use its schools and clinics to hide their terrorist tunnel entrances, store ammunition, and use UNRWA property as rocket-launching sites in its war on Israel. It also continues to allow its labor unions and school system to be controlled by Hamas representatives resulting in the radicalization of UNRWA’s school curricula for inculcating Palestinian children with hatred towards Jews, Israel, and a desire for martyrdom.
Equally disturbing is that a significant portion of UNRWA’s funding comes directly from the United States which gives more to UNRWA than any other country in the world, with the U.S. taxpayer disbursing almost $300 million dollars to the institution in 2013.And what of Fatah, which rules the 'West Bank' and is considered the “moderate” Palestinian faction? Fatah’s website called the slaughter a “heroic operation,” its officials called it “a natural response to the…crimes of the settlers,” and the organization’s Facebook page announced it was handing out candy in 'West Bank' cities.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has gone out of his way in recent weeks to assure Jordan's King Abdullah that Israel is committed to the peace treaty between the two countries, repeating a pledge to even prevent Jews from praying at their holiest site - the Temple Mount - in response to Jordanian demands.
But the Jordanian government has been striking a far less conciliatory tone, with ministers calling on the king to revoke the peace treaty with Israel. Last week, following the deadly attack at a Jerusalem synagogue, Jordan's parliament held a minute's silence and dedicated a special prayer - in honor of the two terrorists, who MPs hailed as "heroes".Speaking to Roya TV, MP Rudaina Ati praised "the (Jerusalem synagogue) operation" for sending "a clear message to the Zionist entity and to Stink-iyahu," referring to Israel with the term used by belligerent Arab states who refuse to recognize the existence of an independent Jewish state."The (Jews) must reconsider what they are doing, because they always violate treaties and abide by none," she continued, playing to anti-Semitic tropes popular in the Arab world.

Jordanian MP Rudaina Ati: "The PA Must Not Defend the Interests of the Filthy Jews"

Prominent Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick was set to be discharged from a Jerusalem hospital on Monday evening after nearly a month of medical treatment for wounds sustained when a terrorist shot him in late October.
A press conference was scheduled at 5 p.m. at Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center upon Glick's release.
Glick was shot four times by 32-year-old Islamic Jihad member Moataz Hejazi after giving a lecture at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem last month. Hejazi was killed in a police shootout at his Abu Tor home hours later.

Results of a poll conducted by Stat Net released by Channel 10 revealed some interesting insights into how Israeli Arabs view the ongoing wave of terrorist violence by Arab terrorists.According to the poll, when asked what their response to the deadly campaign of terror was, 68% of Arab Israeli citizens said they were opposed, while 29% said that Israel "is to blame" for the attacks, and attributed them to the "frustration" felt by Arab residents of Jerusalem - an answer signalling tacit approval for the violence. 3% refused to respond to the question.
The results, while encouraging insofar as they prove that a majority of Israeli Arabs oppose terrorism, do however illustrate how that majority is far from overwhelming. In all, nearly one in three Israeli Arabs did not condemn terrorism against Israelis - a far cry from the optimistic estimate offered late last week by by Economics Minister Naftali Bennett, who asserted that 99.9% of Arab Israelis are "loyal" to the country.Interestingly, however, a full 84% of Israeli Arabs polled supported the condemnation of terrorism in Jerusalem by Arab Members of Knesset, while just 16% said they opposed such expressions of condemnation.

In an exclusive Arutz Sheva interview, David Kupinsky, whose brother Aryeh was among the five Jews slain at the Har Nof synagogue last week, remembers his older sibling – and the qualities that came to bear as he struggled with the murderers, saving others' lives.
Kupinsky was born and raised in the metropolitan Detroit area, where his family were members of what is today Young Israel of Oak Park, one of the biggest Orthodox Jewish congregations in Michigan. Aryeh attended elementary school at Akiva Hebrew Day School in Southfield until he moved to Israel with his family around the age of 10.Rabbi Aryeh Kupinsky was buried in the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem. He is survived by his wife and five children, aged 5 to 16. His daughter Chaya Chana tragically died two years ago in her sleep at the age of 13.

While Goldstein fought for his life with the terrorist, his 12-year-old son, Mordechai, managed to escape from the synagogue.
"I saw that the second terrorist's gun had stopped working, so I was no longer afraid of him," Goldstein said.
"The terrorist with the ax had his back to me. I came up behind him and knocked him down. He dropped the gun and the ax. People thought there was only one gun between the two terrorists, but he also had a gun. Then the second terrorist came to me and a miracle happened: He said, 'Get out of here.'
"I listened to him and went outside, and someone came to treat my wounds. I entered an ambulance and I heard some gunshots."

Gathering in front of the city’s Romanesque Trinity Church yesterday, more than 150 Boston-area Jews remembered the victims of last week’s Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue attack in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood.Holding candles and “Stand with Israel” signs, a crowd of all ages listened to a chanting of the El Malei Rachamim funeral prayer including the five victims’ names. Among those murdered was Rabbi Mosheh Twersky, who once lived in Boston and maintained extensive ties with the local Jewish community.
The 59-year old Twersky was the grandson of New England’s most prominent rabbi, the late Joseph B. Soloveitchik, a founder of modern Orthodoxy. Twersky graduated from Boston’s Soloveitchik-founded Maimonides School in 1973, and — after moving to Israel in 1990 — he founded the English-language Toras Moshe yeshiva in Jerusalem. His Har Nof neighborhood is home to dozens of other one-time Bostonians who moved to Israel.

Rothman’s siblings in Toronto and Montreal told Canadian media that their brother, who made aliyah to Israel 30 years ago with his wife Risa, was struck in the head with a meat cleaver during the attack. He has reportedly lost vision in one eye, suffered brain damage, and is in a medically induced coma.
Toward the end of last week, a spokesperson for Hadassah Medical Center, where Rothman and other victims of the attack are hospitalized, told The Times of Israel that Rothman, the most severely injured of the surviving victims, was in serious condition, had undergone multiple surgeries and had not regained consciousness.
Rothman, 54, has been the breadwinner in his family, working in the State Comptroller’s Office specializing in systems audit. He is the father of 10 children between the ages of four and 24, and recently became a grandfather for the first time. Nine years ago his eldest son, who was 17 at the time, died after accidentally falling off a cliff while riding his bike in the Jerusalem Forest.

The Tel Aviv District Attorney's Office on Monday filed an indictment with the Tel Aviv District Court against a Palestinian for the stabbing and alleged murder of air force Sgt. Almog Shiloni, 20, at midday on November 10 at Hagana train station in south Tel Aviv.
Nur al-Din Abu Hashaya, 18 and a Nablus resident, repeatedly stabbed Shiloni, of Modi'in, in the upper body with a large kitchen-knife and tried to steal his rifle before fleeing, said the indictment.Hashaya allegedly entered Israel illegally on November 9 with the goal of killing a soldier to achieve the status of a "shahid" or martyr.
According to the indictment, when he arrived at the Tel Aviv train station, he saw that Shiloni was carrying an M-16 and decided that he would be his target.

Knesset Finance Committee chairman MK Nissan Slomiansky (Jewish Home) told Arutz Sheva he is looking for legislative and parliamentary means to block the transfer of funds from Israel to the Palestinian Authority (PA).
"We must recognize there's a crazy absurdness here that I don't understand," Slomiansky said. "A terrorist who murdered and attacked and goes into jail has his finances covered during the years in jail, for him and his family."The MK described how money finds its way from the PA to the families of the terrorists and into their personal accounts - all while Israel passes on to the PA taxes it collects for it as per the Paris Protocol and the Oslo Accords, even as the PA fails to stand by its agreements, and owes Israel staggering sums, including over 1.4 billion shekels (over $360 million) in unpaid electric bills.

Interior Minister Gilad Erdan on Sunday revoked the permanent residency of an East Jerusalem man who drove a suicide bomber to his destination in 2001 to carry out a deadly attack.
At the same time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would draft a bill seeking to do the same to East Jerusalemites who incite against Israel.
The move by Erdan came a day after he said he was reviewing the possibility of revoking the Israeli residencies of East Jerusalem Arabs who support terror. Netanyahu on Saturday was expected to advance legislation aimed at revoking the residency permits and social benefits of East Jerusalem Arabs who engage in terrorism or other nationalistically motivated crimes, such as incitement to violence against the state.
Mohammed Nadi served 10 years in prison for transporting a suicide bomber to Tel Aviv’s Dolphinarium nightclub on June 1, 2001, in an attack that killed 21 teenagers and injured 132 people. He was convicted of assisting homicide, assisting in causing severe bodily harm, and assisting illegal entry of a Palestinian. On Sunday, Erdan revoked Nadi’s residency, which in effect prevents Nadi from receiving social benefits, health insurance, and costs him his Israeli identification card.

The intensity and frequency of candy-laden celebrations by Palestinians after a major misfortune befalls Israel has increased in recent years. Although Palestinians cheered the terrorist attacks that hit the US in September 2001, that celebration of Islamists striking Israel’s principal ally carried on only for a matter of days. In the intervening years terrorists have killed hundreds of Israelis, sometimes prompting the distribution of sweets, but only since 2009 have the sweets been distributed on every occasion involving Arab violence killing Jews.Dr. Mustafa Insoulin of Shifa Hospital was the first to raise the diabetes alarm in 2009. “We noticed an uptick in diabetes cases following the winter conflict that year,” he recalled, referring to what Israelis call Operation Cast Lead. “Once a ceasefire was announced the candies came out, and Gazans have been celebrating Israeli deaths that way ever since. But my colleagues and I petitioned the Ministry of Health to find an alternative, because diabetes is one of the more nefarious Zionist death agents, invented specifically to prevent Palestinians from celebrating in their traditional way.”
It took several years to find a listening ear. “We had to be very careful how we went about trying to get the ministry to promote the change, because at the drop of a khaffiyeh we could ourselves accused of trying to undermine a central aspect of Palestinian culture and collaborating with the Zionist regime,” he said. “So it took time, but the officials finally came around to our way of thinking.”
Insoulin’s colleague Salaam Pankrias related the argument that swayed skeptical ministry officials in favor of the new policy. “It would be more consistent with the image we wish to portray of the Israeli blockade not to have sweets so liberally available everywhere all the time,” he said.

A recent propaganda video released by the Islamist State terrorist group (ISIS) showcases how it is building the next generation of jihadis, by training and indoctrinating young children at special camps.
The video, produced in the slick, professional style of most other ISIS videos, shows young children assembling assault rifles and practicing military drills with loaded guns, while their Islamist instructor hails them as "the next generation" who will fulfill ISIS's dream of world domination under the banner of Islam.One child recruit, who looks about 10 years old, identifies himself as "Abdullah" from Kazakhstan and expresses his desire to kill non-Muslims."I will be the one who slaughters you, O kuffar (infidel), I will be a mujahid (holy warrior) Inshallah (God-willing)."

The group’s propaganda magazine, Dabiq, has directly linked the Endeavour Hills attack with global terrorism.
An article, purportedly written by captured British photojournalist John Cantlie, declares that the stabbing was linked to an order given by Shaykh Abu Mohammad al-Adnani just days before the incident.
“In Australia, Numan Haider stabbed two counter-terrorism police officers,” the article states.“These attacks were the direct result of the Shaykh’s call to action, and they highlight what a deadly tinderbox is fizzing just beneath the surface of every Western country, waiting to explode into violent action at any moment given the right conditions.”
Haider, 18, stabbed a Victoria Police officer and an Australian Federal Police officer multiple times outside Endeavour Hills police station on September 23.

Iraqi MP Qassem Al-Araji: We Want Help from Iran, Not U.S., in Our Fight against ISIS

The US and Iran will extend nuclear talks into 2015, Western diplomats said, as the sides agreed to continue negotiations after failing to reach a deal by a November 24 deadline.
A well-placed Western diplomat said that elements are falling into place for an agreement to allow talks on Iran’s nuclear program to continue for more than seven months.
The diplomat told The Associated Press Monday that a broad agreement should be completed by March 1, with the final details worked out by July 1.The talks would be extended until July 1, 2015, AFP reported, citing a Western diplomat.

The justification for sending the negotiations into what would amount to a second overtime period after the expiration of a previous deadline over the summer would grant Iran even more time to push closer to its nuclear ambition with not even the flimsiest of Western checks on its ability to advance its goals. Moreover, last year’s deal has not been scrupulously observed by Iran and, contrary to the president’s assurances, has neither stopped their program nor provided anything more than a flimsy obstacle to a break out or a sneak out.
The problem is not just that the U.S. seems to lack the will to get Iran to take seriously the consequences of a refusal. It’s that the president is still far more eager to inaugurate a new period of détente with Tehran than to take the sort of minimal actions required for making the Iranians see reason. Again today, Obama reiterated his desire for starting a new relationship with the Islamist regime while refusing to state his willingness to increase sanctions to end its continuing flow of oil revenue that keep the regime afloat. That’s exactly the kind of rhetoric inclined to reconfirm the Iranian leadership’s evaluation of the president as a weak leader who lacks the stomach for the kind of confrontations that they relish. With Western diplomats openly speculating about another 6-12 months being allowed for more negotiations, that not only makes the Iranians less inclined to yield but also should increase their covert activity while keeping the IAEA out of crucial sites.
While Iran sticks to its positions that protect its nuclear option, President Obama continues to show the world that his zeal for a deal far exceeds his intention to stop the Islamists from achieving their nuclear goal. Barring a last-minute change of heart on the part of the president, it appears that no matter whether they sign the weak deal offered or continue to hold out for an even weaker one at some point in the future, Iran wins and the security of the West and allies like Israel and moderate Arab states lose.

Put another way, Washington is widely reported to seek only assurances that Iran will remain at least one year away from testing a nuclear weapon.But a year isn’t really a year: It would take IAEA inspectors a few months to detect any Iranian cheating, then a few more months for the West to verify said cheats — and then even more until the West convinces everybody else to renew sanctions, which would’ve been removed by then.
By that point, if Iran decides to go for the prize, no one will be able to stop it from testing a bomb.Then, too, some of the West’s cave-ins in the talks so far “throw the IAEA under the bus,” according to former inspector David Albright.
The latest, reportedly, would forgo the agency’s demand that Iran account for all its past covert activities before any agreement is signed. As Albright explains, without a baseline of what the Iranians have already done, it’ll be tough to discover future cheating.

As last-minute nuclear talks between Iran and the West reach a critical stage, Iranian mouthpiece, Press TV, has released a transparent psy-ops film that allegedly discloses the Mossad’s intel operation against Tehran’s nuke program, Israel’s Ch. 2 News reported Sunday.“The Mossad is like the devil – you expel him from the door, and he returns through the window. You need to be careful all the time,” according to one head of Iran’s nuclear project appearing in the psuedo-documentary, “Covert War.”

Netanyahu's comments came during a BBC interview in which he said the current stalemate in the talks is a “lot better” than the deal that he said Iran was pushing for. That deal, which he described not as a “bad deal,” but rather a “horrible deal,” would have “left Iran with the ability to enrich uranium to an atom bomb while removing sanctions."
The deal that the world should be pushing for, he added, was to “dismantle Iran's capacity to make atomic bombs, and then only to dismantle the sanctions.”
Netanyahu dismissed Iran's oft-heard argument that it has the “natural right” to enrich uranium, saying “there is no right to enrich. What do you need to enrich uranium for if you are not developing an atomic bomb?”Netanyahu said Iran's development of intercontinental ballistic missiles is a clear sign that it is seeking nuclear weapons. The only reason you build ICBMs is to launch a nuclear warhead. So Iran, I think everyone understands, is unabashedly seeking to develop atomic bombs. And I think they shouldn't have the capacity either to enrich uranium or to deliver nuclear warheads. And I think that is the position the P5+1 should take.”

As negotiations continue between the Western powers and Iran over the country’s illegal nuclear program, a front page article in The New York Times today documented the difficulty the West would have in fashioning an agreement that would account for Iran’s hidden nuclear research."Unstated is the fear of a more problematic issue, referred to as “sneakout.” That describes the risk of a bomb being produced at an undetected facility deep in the Iranian mountains, or built from fuel and components obtained from one of the few trading partners happy to do business with Tehran, like North Korea. …
The American officials are highly attuned to the findings of a once-classified 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that concluded that Iran ended its headlong race for a bomb in late 2003. But it also concluded that smaller-scale activity continued, and warned that “Iran probably would use covert facilities — rather than its declared nuclear sites — for the production of highly enriched uranium for a weapon.”

As talks on Iran's nuclear program reach their deadline today, and amid indications that America is trying to extend the talks yet again, new reports reveal that US President Barack Obama is urging Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with rival Iran in yet another sign of the White House's softly-softly approach to Iran.
According to the reports, during meetings in recent days with Saudi National Guard Minister Prince Miteb Bin Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, Obama asked the senior official to improve ties with Tehran, according to the Saudi site Ilaph as cited by Yedioth Aharonoth.A source in the Gulf state told the Arabic-language paper that his government feels the White House is pressing for an agreement with Iran, warning "let them try Tehran and pay the price."
The source claimed that Obama noted several times in meetings with Abdulaziz the need for openness towards Tehran in the near future, possibly indicating plans for American concessions on Iran's nuclear program.

Antisemitic incitement by Turkish government officials, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's oft-repeated statements that Israel is more barbaric than Hitler, and antisemitic accusations and threats by the media that support and promote Turkey's AKP ruling party have fostered an upsurge in antisemitism in the country. A recent survey by Gonzo Insight, the Turkish polling institute, found that in just 24 hours, on July 17-18, 2014, 27,309 Turkish Twitter users sent 30,926 Turkish-language tweets in support of Hitler's genocide against the Jews.
In addition to statements by government officials, the pro-AKP media regularly accuse Turkey's Jews of "treason," and other accusations are also levelled, including connecting Jews with the use of Ebola as a biological weapon in "global occupation" that "knows no borders"; in addition, a professor tweeted about sending Jews to Treblinka.
Antisemitism is an accepted part of the government discourse; for example, in protests following the May 2014 mine collapse in Soma, in which over 300 miners died, then-prime minister Erdogan yelled at and scuffled with a miner, calling him "sperm of Israel."
At the same time that President Erdogan was denying, in his September 22, 2014 speech at the Council of Foreign Relations, that he or his government were in any way antisemitic, members of his party back home were tweeting praise for Hitler, and shops in Istanbul were displaying signs reading "No Admittance To Jewish Dogs."

In a recent article in this journal, this author reminded that:"At an international donors' conference for Gaza in March 2009, the Turkish pledges stood at a mere $93 million. That pledge accounted for only 2.1 percent of all international pledges made at that conference.$32 million had been collected in Turkey for Gaza for humanitarian aid. Thirty-two million dollars make 0.00004 percent of the world's 17th biggest economy."
Apparently, Turkey is not the only country reflecting the Islamist hypocrisy when it comes to trafficking money with the Palestinians -- and Israelis.
As recently highlighted in an article in The Times of Israel, official data tells of a booming, but very discreet, trade relationship, blossoming between Israel and Malaysia -- another "loud voice against Israel and a benefactor for the 'Palestinian cause.'"
Total trade between the two countries in 2013 reached $1.529 billion, almost double that of 2012. This figure consists mostly of Israeli exports, at $1.457 billion, or 95 percent of the whole two-way trade. By contrast, Malaysia's foreign trade figures do not carry any mention of Israel at all. In its annual data for 2012, for instance, trade with Israel is included in an entry for "other countries."

Turkish President Erdogan has recently come under intense criticism for his unwillingness to come to the aid of the beleaguered Syrian Kurds in the city of Kobani just across the Turkish border. Sadly, Erdogan’s behavior is not surprising as he has always pursued policies consistent with the image of himself as a great leader and his country as a regional hegemon and a global power.
To his credit, Erdogan served his country with distinction, especially during much of his first and second term as Prime Minister. He put Turkey on the map as a progressive and prosperous nation, one that struck a healthy balance between religion and democracy, was admired by friends, envied by foes, and recognized as a major regional power.
Since coming to power in 2002, however, his achievements have been eclipsed by three themes that have dominated his political career: a) his distorted account of the Ottoman Empire and his vision of Turkey’s future “greatness’, b) his religious fervor and support of Islamists, and c) his insatiable hunger for power domestically, regionally, and globally.

He has repeatedly become exacerbated by the constraints of facts. When some historians began using old documents and records, and historical artifacts to research old Istanbul churches, Erdoğan grew annoyed that anyone would record or discuss Istanbul’s pre-Islamic past. He chided, “They don’t know Istanbul’s history. They go around with magnifying glass in their hand like [the Byzantine Emperor] Romanus Diogenes.” He apparently confused Romanus IV with Diogenes of Sinope, a Greek philosopher who lived more than a millennium before, and who went around with a lantern, not a magnifying glass. Philosophers, however, have not been his thing. After all, he once said, “If the Germans have Goethe and if the Spaniards have Socrates….”
Now, it’s perfectly true that other world leaders can occasionally get history wrong. George H.W. Bush once mistakenly commemorated the anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day on September 7 rather than December 7. When mistakes happen, however, leaders acknowledge them. President Bush corrected himself; he didn’t order textbooks re-written to make his error the new norm.Erdoğan may sound foolish, but the importance of his errors extends far beyond himself. Rather, they reflect the future of Turkey. Erdoğan is a product of an İmam Hatip education, the Turkish equivalent of a madrasa. Prior to Erdoğan’s rise, İmam Hatip graduates would primarily become mullahs or perhaps work in family businesses. Their lack of grounding in liberal arts and science disqualified them from most university programs and the government service which might follow. But Erdoğan has bolstered and promoted the İmam Hatips, so that their graduates now dominate Turkey’s bureaucracy. Erdoğan may be no historian, but he has become the rule rather than the exception for the Turkish government he leads. He has ensured that there are thousands if not tens of thousands of protégés marching in lockstep behind him, all of whom treat fact with disdain and embrace mindless revisionism. Welcome to the future of Turkey.

From MEMRI : Jordanian businessman Talal Abu Ghazaleh said that there was an “easy solution” to the Palestinian problem: “Let every Pal...

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Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون

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